Carolina Panthers: Let's Scale Back on the Cam Newton Overrated Talks

It seems that after last season’s great-stats-but-no-cigar type of rookie campaign for Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton, many were eager to slam the quarterback for being wrongfully over-hyped.

And I’m here to say, let’s all take a deep breathe, and relax. It’s just his rookie season.

I’m no Cam Newton fan by any means, and I looked at him sideways when he would throw for countless yards and still lose games. But to say he’s overrated is well, reaching.

If anything, we should be excited about Cam Newton’s promise. He broke the rookie record for most passing yards in a season by a rookie (4,051) and other records such as most rushing touchdowns by a quarterback (14).

As a rookie, he made a lot of plays look easy.

At 6’5” 250 pounds, he’s truly the LeBron James of his position. But the way he was criticized made it seem that he was all about stats and not about winning.

In a sense, he didn’t make the plays needed to win. He threw 17 interceptions and in every game he had a turnover, the Panthers lost. But shouldn’t we see that when he played spectacular the Panthers won?

That’s the upside in Cam Newton. He has so many areas he’s good at, and so many places where he can make improvement.

His confidence and love for the game is evident, and he shows the poise that he wants to improve.

Not to sound cliché, but he did show his determination to takeover games while a Heisman winner at Auburn. Just imagine when he actually gets “it” in the pros

Again, it’s Cam Newton’s first season, and a lot of fans must have forgotten Peyton Manning had an even worse season as a rookie in 1998. Cam Newton outplayed Manning statistically in every category except in touchdowns thrown.

Let’s give him a few seasons like we did with a say, Tony Romo, before we can consider putting him in that class of overrated.

We can expect an enormous season from Cam Newton in 2012; his talent is great enough to make the offense around him even better.